the world is so different now than it was when the bible was written. how are we supposed to be able to apply meaning and direction from these ancient texts to our lives today. i’m reading the bible online on my laptop, i heated my coffee up in a microwave oven this morning, my daughter’s favorite toy is my cellphone, and she already knows how to navigate my ipod (she’s 3 years old). the internet is used to lure young victims into slavery, steal identities, and distribute pornographic and otherwise destructive material that they could never have imagined when Jesus was walking the earth, handing out bits of wisdom and guidance. paul didn’t write anything about dvd copyright infringement or meth-amphetamine abuse or identity theft. so what do we do about that?
what david says here is pretty great. no he’s never fought a 9-foot man before, who’s trained in warfare since he was a child, who has bronze armor and a spear with a 15-pound spear head. king saul is convinced that he won’t know what to do, because david’s not trained to handle this giant. but he had fought a lion. and he had fought a bear. without a sword. with his bare hands. like a freaking warrior.
tending and protecting those sheep forced him to be resourceful and creative. and that is how he prepared for his epic battle with the giant.
we may be facing things that our parents and grandparents never faced. we might not have a map to tell us exactly how to navigate each of the newest challenges of morality. but we have a guide that tells us about the essence of morality. we can learn what evil looks like, and what good/righteousness looks like. we can train ourselves to spot temptation and deceit. then we can use our brains and our creativity and our hearts to know the truth and the best way to deal with what we’re facing. we can mow down the oppressors of our generation. we can set our people free.
1. i got more sleep last night than i have in about a week. not quite 7 hours, but still felt good.
2. amelia sleeps better in her pack-n-play than she does in her crib. i don’t know why. but my inlaws are in town, so they got her room, and she moved to the pack-n-play in our room and she slept all night without a fuss. (hence 7 hours of sleep, hence feeling good today.)
3. services this morning were great. pastor riley challenged the men today to fight for each other and for our families. very moving.
4. yesterday cathy hensle, jim tulloss, and jeff ballantyne came through for us in an amazing way, donating about two hours of their saturdays to help reset the stage and sound board from the wedding this weekend. (weddings are wonderful and blessed and all that, but they wreak havoc on a church stage and soundboard.) their hard work made my four-hour-plus monster into a two-hour project, and i can’t say enough about their heart for ministry at this church and their willingness to give of themselves to see it happen.
5. the band was a little different today. just one electric guitar and my acoustic, instead of having our usual 2 electrics plus acoustic. made for a slightly lighter sound/feel i think. although i have no idea what the house sounded like because of my in-ear monitors.
6. i dropped into the sanctuary during the classic service prelude, and they were working some kinks out of the soundboard. all the sudden the music got REAL loud for a couple of seconds. just then one of our more “classic” ladies looked up at me and said, “that’s probably the way you like it, huh?” i think she was joking. but you know there’s a little truth behind every joke. i said, “not that loud,” but what i meant was, “yes. it sounds good.”
7. as i mentioned, my in-laws are in town. that’s because we celebrated amelia’s birthday yesterday. my brother is also here for the weekend. so lunch was a production, with eleven of us at panera, trying to sit together. but it’s always fun to dominate a restaurant like that.
8. gretchen got a ticket on the way to church today. when we registered our vehicle, she thought she was paying for the remainder of the year plus another year. but apparently there was a miscommunication between her and the clerk @ the bmv…so instead of having nine more months on our license plates, we were actually three months behind. aargh. so she can’t drive the van until the registration is updated, and she gets a fine. well at least the community is being kept safe from my gretchen, the terror of marion county (*sarcastic). (i know it’s their job. sorry i’m a jerk.)
1. favorite song: this song has been in my head pretty much all day and all night since they sang it in my church last sunday. i’m not sorry – coincidence maybe
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4. favorite blog: the dude is hilarious. actually, if i’m being honest, which i am, i stole the idea for a periodical list of favorite things directly from him. i’ll try not to steal any of the favorite things themselves from him, so you won’t read in duplicity. anyway, check him out.
“…but i did obey God…” saul seems to think that he’s done the right thing here. not only the right thing, but he feels like he has gone above and beyond the call of God, thought of a better way to use the resources that God clearly told him how to use them. God wasn’t pleased with saul’s disobedience, even though saul had (at least in his explanation) good intentions and motives for doing what he did.
in high school english class we were taught to read what characters say with a certain level of skepticism, as some characters will lie or embellish in a story to make themselves look better. i think that saul was probably doing some of that here: backpedaling, coming up with great reasons why he showed weakness and allowed the people to do whatever they wanted. i think that he was probably scared of the people or greedy…or a little bit of both…there in the moment.
but let’s just give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he really did think it all through, that he intentionally allowed israel to plunder the cattle and brought back the king all for the glory of God…in that case, saul chose to use resources that God had given him in a way contrary to how God had told him to use them. like God giving me a hundred bucks and saying “give this to the third person you see,” but instead i call my banker, tell him to invest it, earn three hundred bucks and buy a plaque that says “God is awesome.”
while it may be true that God is in fact awesome, the point is that God told me to use the money differently. the same goes for saul. he was disobedient. he was foolish. and the fact is that i do this crap all the time.
maybe i don’t hear God telling me what to do, maybe i genuinely think i have a better plan, or maybe i just relent to pressure in a moment of weakness. but the point is that every time that i look back on a decision not to trust God, i regret it.
the world cup is on. they’ve built the stadiums, they’ve mowed the grass…
though i don’t think i’ll be able to watch much of it, because of my schedule and whatnot, i’m excited about it nonetheless.
i was in france in 1998 when they won the world cup on their own soil. the party in the streets of my little town was off the chain that night. the excitement in the air was electric.
after seeing invictus, and the espn 30 for 30 documentary the sixteenth man, i can only imagine the energy and anticipation that is circulating in south africa right now. very cool. (plus, like every american soccer fan every four years at every world cup, i think we actually have a chance this year. )
check out some amazing photos of the preparations at the big picture, a photo blog of the boston globe.
last fall we bought a minivan. we got it used, with quite a few miles on it, knowing that we would most likely have to repair it sooner or later. well, when we pick it up from the shop today (the second time since we’ve owned it), we will have invested an additional $950 into it, beyond the purchase price. that’s a lot of money to us…
BUT
for the convenience and comfort and flexibility that it affords us (especially gretchen, since she’s the one who drives it the most), i still say that it’s worth it. i guess you can ask me in another six months to see if we’ve had to dump any more money on it.
ANYWAY
saw this video this morning, and it made me think of how gretchen and i both said we would never drive a minivan…and how now we love it. enjoy.
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